Enterprises satellite networks typically use a satellite hub interface with the satellite radio equipment at one end and a “Head Office Router” or enterprise router at the other end. A Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) connects branch offices of the enterprise to the enterprise network. High availability for the enterprise network is provided by using redundant satellite hubs. Typically, in enterprise networks the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses assigned to VSATs are static and predefined. This poses a challenge in maintaining satellite hub redundancy. This challenge is addressed by having an active-standby configuration as described in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art enterprise satellite network 100. The network 100 includes a satellite 102, an active satellite hub 104, a standby satellite hub 106, an enterprise router 108, a VSAT 110 and a VSAT 114. Devices (not shown) on a remote network 112 (for example, 10.10.2.0/24) use the VSAT 110 over a communication path 120 to communicate with devices (not shown) connected to the enterprise router 108 via the satellite 102 and the active satellite hub 104. Similarly, devices (not shown) on a remote network 116 use the VSAT 114 over a communication path 122 to communicate with devices (not shown) connected to the enterprise router 108 via the satellite 102 and the active satellite hub 104.
The provisioning of the active satellite hub 104 advertises a route 124 (for example, 10.10.0.0/16) from the enterprise router 108 and to a satellite based network via the active satellite hub 104. Route 124 directs the enterprise router 108 to communicate with all IP networks whose addresses begin with the octets 10.10 via the active satellite hub 104. The active satellite hub 104 manages routing of traffic between the enterprise router 108 and remote networks 112, 116 through the VSAT 110 and VSAT 114, as necessary. Analogously, the provisioning of the standby satellite hub 106 ensures that it does not advertise a route to the satellite network (for example, 10.10.0.0/16) via the standby satellite hub 106.
In network 100, the standby satellite hub 106 provides only a 1:1 redundancy. Also, the standby satellite hub 106 cannot be utilized for load sharing. Furthermore, the standby satellite hub 106 sits idle until the active satellite hub 104 goes offline. In addition, when a switchover takes place, the entire population of VSATs may be impacted by a switchover. A lack of scalability is also an issue with this approach. When traffic grows, the enterprise network cannot be expanded by adding another hub processor. Instead, a pair of redundant satellite hubs has to be added leading to additional costs. Lastly, a separate IP address pool has to be assigned to the new pair of satellite hubs, thus partitioning the VSATs connecting to the new satellite hubs into a set of VSATs, that is different than the set of VSATs connecting to the not-new satellite hubs. This partitioning further increases the management overhead.